Tutorial 9: The live plot (optional)¶
Prerequisites¶
What you'll learn¶
- What the live plot shows during a running session.
- How to turn it on or off.
- Which task settings shape it.
1. What it is¶
The live plot is an on-rig window that draws the current session's panels as
trials complete, so you can watch behaviour in real time. It is rendered from the
same task-owned plot spec used for re-plotting, so what you
see live matches what you can redraw later. It needs a desktop session with Qt
available; install the qt extra:
The live plot is optional. A session writes all its data whether or not the plot is shown, so a headless rig simply leaves it off.
2. Turn it on or off¶
The live plot is controlled by the show_live_plot task setting. Disable it for
one run with a CLI override:
To make the choice permanent for a task or rig, set show_live_plot in the
task's config-dir overlay instead of passing the flag
each time:
3. Settings that shape the plot¶
When the plot is shown, a family of online_plot_* keys in the task's task.yaml
tune its appearance. They are ordinary task settings, so you can inspect them
with msw tasks defaults <task> and override them through any layer of the
overlay chain. Examples from the sequence task:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
online_plot_xlim_trials |
width of the trial x-axis window (0 = show all) |
online_plot_poke_xmax_s |
x-axis width for poke-time panels, in seconds |
online_plot_poke_log_scale |
log vs linear y-axis for the poke raster |
The exact keys are task-specific. Treat the task's own defaults as the authoritative list rather than memorising names.
You now know¶
The live plot is an optional, Qt-based real-time view rendered from the task's
plot spec, toggled with show_live_plot and tuned by online_plot_* settings.
It never affects what data is written, so it is safe to disable on headless rigs.